


your most frail gesture

by placentalmammal



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: Signet and the Cadent reunite after the disastrous conclusion of the Mysteries.Spoilers through Twilight Mirage 02: The Last Divine





	your most frail gesture

**Author's Note:**

> shout-out to the good folks running the [Twilight Mirage Wiki](http://friends-at-the-table-twilight-mirage.wikia.com/wiki/Friends_at_the_Table:_Twilight_Mirage_Wiki) you're doing the Lord's work
> 
> y'all have no idea how close I was to making Signet's tag be their whole name. so close. but I took pity on the tag wranglers who'd have to parse that prose poem of a tag and went with the truncated version. [Title ganked from the poem that made me cry when I was 14.](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/somewhere-i-have-never-travelledgladly-beyond)
> 
> Fuck proofreading, it's for NERDS.

After the disaster that unfolds at the Mysteries, ⸢Signet⸣ finds the Cadent in her palatial rectory, the silent eye of a hurricane of whispers and armed guards. She is still wearing her vestments, although her hair is disheveled and her lipstick is smeared halfway across her face. A purpling bruise mars her cheek, but she is otherwise unharmed, and ⸢Signet⸣ is so relieved to see her whole and unmolested that she goes to her knees at once.

The Cadent’s attendants rush forward, squawking in alarm. The Cadent herself, the Holy Representative, Guidance Under Mirage, elbows them out of the way and takes ⸢Signet⸣ by the hand, hauling her roughly to her feet. “You made it,” she says, her voice colored by relief.

⸢Signet⸣ swallows and nods and the Cadent flings her arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. Startled and unused to physical contact, ⸢Signet⸣ goes stiff. After a moment’s hesitation, she returns the embrace, hands settling awkwardly on the small of the Cadent’s back. She is shorter than ⸢Signet⸣ by several inches, somehow still childlike despite the majesty of her titles and her position within the Resonant Orbit. The Cadent is a woman grown and wise beyond her years, but the simple intensity of her being is enough to slip beneath ⸢Signet⸣’s guard.

“I was so worried,” murmurs the Cadent, and she pulls back slightly. Her eyes—lavender, and not naturally so—shine with tears. “They said you were still inside, when it happened. I thought that maybe you—”

She cannot bring herself to finish the sentence and ⸢Signet⸣ does not allow her. She tightens her arms around the Cadent’s waist (an impropriety, someone gasps and she pays them no mind) and holds her close, whispering soothing nothings against the top of the other woman’s head.

“I’m here now,” she says, “it’s alright.”

The sight of the Cadent in tears is overwhelming. Again, ⸢Signet⸣ feels the impulse to genuflect or prostrate herself before the other woman—a show of deference and devotion would be the most appropriate gesture from a disgraced former-excerpt to the Cadent Under Mirage, the living blood of Kamala Cadence—but the Cadent clings very tightly to her, and she cannot bear to push her away. The moment exists on two levels: there is the public display, the grandiose pageant required of them both and beneath it, the intimacy of vulnerability, a friend overcome by grief. A proper excerpt would make the necessary obsequiences and kneel to kiss the Cadent’s rings and murmur vows of fealty and protection against her holy palm.

⸢Signet⸣ tightens her hold on the other woman and buries her face in her hair. She had felt the same terror the Cadent had professed, had been unable to think or breathe until she saw the other woman, safe and whole. One hand comes up to cradle the Cadent’s head, the other remains on her waist.

“I can’t lose you,” she whispers. Her lips are milimeters from the other woman’s ear, her voice is barely audible above the perennial music of the engines of Séance, audible only to herself and to the Cadent.

The Cadent pulls back again, and, not remembering or caring about their audience, kisses ⸢Signet⸣ on the corner of the mouth. It’s a quick peck, barely more than a brush of her lips against ⸢Signet⸣’s, but it conveys entire volumes.

There is another gasp, a sharp, shocked sound that cuts through the peaceable still of the Cadent’s private quarters. Heedless, ⸢Signet⸣ returns the Cadent’s kiss, fingers digging into her hips. She intends the kiss to be more courtly than passionate, she is out-of-practice and does not wish to bring shame to the Cadent—

—who kisses ⸢Signet⸣ as though there is no tomorrow, as if they might be torn from one another’s arms at any moment, as if the room were not crowded with two dozen bodyguards and church officials and hangers-on. Her hands twist in ⸢Signet⸣’s blouse and she welcomes the sweep of her tongue. It’s clumsy and earnest and very, _very_ good.

She’s gasping for breath when she pulls back, a flush on her cheek. Her eyes slide over ⸢Signet⸣’s face and she laughs softly and raises a hand to dab at her mouth. “My lipstick,” she says, the corners of her mouth turning upward. “You’ve got it all over your face.”

Someone clears their throat. ⸢Signet⸣ and the Cadent jump, blushing like a pair of schoolchildren caught behind the bleachers. A stone-faced attendant stands close at hand, dressed all in red and gold, the mourning colors of Memorious. “Perhaps Our Holy Representative requires a moment of privacy,” they say, without inflection.

“Oh!” The Cadent’s hand flies up to her mouth, and the sound of her laughter is sublime: oversize and incomprehensible and utterly beautiful. “Oh, yes, I must receive the Excerpt’s full account, of course—” She gestures her dismissal, and the assembled crowd begins to file out, all mostly looking at the ground rather than at ⸢Signet⸣ or the Cadent. One of the guards, a synthetic being kin to the one injured at the Mysteries, protests the dismissal of all the Cadent’s guard, but she loops her arm through ⸢Signet⸣’s and smiles her ineffable smile.

“I won’t be alone,” she says serenely. “I’ll have the Excerpt to protect me.” She turns her smile on ⸢Signet⸣ and it’s as if all the air has left the room. She is beautiful, she is perfect, she is small and untidy with smudged lipliner and her hair in her face. ⸢Signet⸣ feels overwhelming tenderness for her, a devotion deeper and more profound than the simple reverence owed to the Cadent Under Mirage.

When everyone is gone, she lifts the Cadent’s hand to her lips and presses a kiss to her palm. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Gumption—”

“Not now.” The Cadent reaches out to cup ⸢Signet⸣’s cheek in her two hands. “You saved my life. You went back for Chyron.”

⸢Signet⸣’s eyes well with tears and the Cadent kisses her again, gently. It is a small kiss, but ⸢Signet⸣ is an Excerpt. Her life’s work is an abbreviation, a passage taken from context, the ritual search for meaning in fragments. She swallows her doubts and kisses back. Together, they find meaning outside themselves.


End file.
